


Days of Sorrow

by LORBEERPRINZ



Series: Of Sorrow and Hope [1]
Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Character Death, Fire Emblem: Three Houses Blue Lions Route, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Post-Timeskip (Fire Emblem: Three Houses)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-30
Updated: 2019-10-14
Packaged: 2020-09-30 12:48:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 11,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20447408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LORBEERPRINZ/pseuds/LORBEERPRINZ
Summary: After changing to the Blue Lions house all those years ago, Linhardt had already expected to find himself and his former classmates on opposite sites of the battlefield. He knew he would have to face Caspar in this war, thought he had been prepared. However, nothing in the world could have prepared him for the horror that would enfold and how to live with it. While those around him try to reach out in support, they are just as much affected by his state of mind, especially his professor.





	1. Chapter 1

This wasn’t supposed to happen. 

Linhardt had known Caspar practically for all his life, had been well aware his friend was unable to cope with magic attacks. When they had found themselves on opposing sides at Fort Merceus, Linhardt had made sure to not use his full strength as he flung his gusts of cutting winds at him.  
All he had wanted was to force him into retreating from the battlefield. Maybe like this, he had hoped, they might be able to come together again one day, after Edelgard’s seeming madness had been put to a stop.

But something happened.  
It happened so quickly that Linhardt couldn’t at first comprehend what was going on. Caspar screamed in agony, so loud and gurgling it made Linhard’s blood freeze. He had never heard his friend scream like that, no matter the injury.  
Something was definitely wrong.  
Caspar’s axe slipped from his hands, he collapsed to the ground.

The green-haired stared at the scene in front of him as Caspar’s men shuffled in confusion and horror, raised their weapons towards the mage.  
From the corner of his eye, he noticed a javelin closing in on him.  
It didn’t hit, something about which Linhard hardly cared that moment, and instead met a huge metal shield with a loud clang.

“Don’t let your guard down, boy!”

Gilbert rushed past him, swung his axe at the now headless battalion and proceeded to cut a path through the opening Caspar’s fall had provided.

Linhardt slowly approached Caspar’s motionless body as pools of blood formed around him. The mage hated the sight of blood, the smell, all of it. It made him sick to his stomach.  
But he had decided to come back, to fight in this war, even if it meant he was going against his home country, his former allies, classmates. He’d been prepared to see familiar faces die.  
Or so he had thought.  
He felt the nausea roll through him, way worse than all those years ago when he had been forced to kill a person for the very first time. This was so different from everything he had experienced before.  
It burned him up from the inside. He shivered.

Caspar was still alive, breathing lightly, but surely not for long anymore. Countless wounds adorned his body, Linhardt couldn’t tell if it was his attack that had opened them directly or whether they were the result of Caspar’s armor bursting into dozens of tiny, sharp pieces.  
“Heh…”  
Caspar opened his eyes, a tiny smile flying across his face. Linhard’s mind locked up, was he supposed to do or say anything? There was nothing he could say in this moment, was there? The situation was obvious.  
The only thing he could think of was to drop to his knees, blood be damned, to be able to better hear whatever his friend was trying to utter. Battlefields were always so loud.  
“See…? Told you this is our first and last fight… I’m just glad... it was you…”

The mage tried to swallow down the urge to throw up. Breathing was so hard.  
He knew it was useless to heal his blue-haired friend at this point. The wounds were too numerous, the blood loss way too high, Caspar’s life slipped away much faster than he would ever be able to restore it.  
All Linhardt could do was watch as the warrior weakly raised a hand, but couldn’t get wherever he had wanted it to reach. He thought he heard him say his name, but wasn’t sure. Caspar’s words were hardly anything but rattling whispers at this point.   
In typical fashion, however, this was nothing to keep Caspar from trying again with all the energy he had left.

“H...ey, Linhardt, I…”  
Caspar’s hand sunk, his eyes lost focus.

All that was left for Linhardt to do was to close his friend’s eyelids with shaking hands and to lay him down with as much dignity as possible. He rose, stared at his own robes soaked with blood.  
Was it Caspar’s blood or his own?   
Maybe some of the armor pieces around had dug into his own skin, but he couldn’t quite tell. 

Everything felt so numb.

Arrows and fireballs kept flying over his head, clashing swords and lances were nothing but a drowned hush in his ears.   
The only thing he could really hear were footsteps approaching him from behind, slowly but steadily. Maybe someone had come to prey on the situation and end him. Maybe it would be better this way. Maybe he should still fight. He wasn’t sure.  
The footsteps came to a halt, and somehow Linhardt managed to muster the strength to turn and look behind him.  
He found Byleth, who swallowed upon the sight presented to him. Silence fell between them, the noises of the battlefield still hadn’t quite returned yet.  
It was almost impossible to hear the professor either.

“It’s okay for you to retreat for now. If you can’t fight in this state, that’s fine.”

Linhardt’s gaze darted back and forth between his commander and the dead body to his feet.  
“...do you offer this to everyone?”  
“Yes.”  
“I see. But no worries, I’m fine. Just a little exhausted, so I think I would like to… stay behind the front lines for a while.”  
He yawned, but Byleth’s raised eyebrow told him immediately the professor was easily seeing through this facade. Despite that five-year gap, Byleth probably had heard so many of Linhardt’s yawns that he could tell right away when one was genuine and when it wasn’t. If he was able to do with with every person in this army, it was quite impressive.

Byleth held out his hand.  
“If you don’t want to leave, at least stay close to me for now. You’re too vulnerable.”  
“I am not – ”  
Linhardt sighed, disputing this man was useless, he knew it all too well. He always managed to be right somehow.  
“Come”, Byleth invited him again, soft voice ringing in the mage’s ears, “I’m sure he wouldn’t want you to die here.”

One more time Linhardt looked back at Caspar’s lifeless figure, hesitated for just a moment, feeling the regret that it was impossible for him to retrieve the body.   
He swallowed and finally took Byleth’s hand as the warmth of it slowly made the nausea ebb away and they kept fighting their way through the fortress.


	2. Chapter 2

It seemed almost ironic to Linhardt how often he found himself at the monastery’s graveyard these days. He didn’t even have any real business here, Caspar wasn’t there.   
Of course he wasn’t.

He didn’t know what had happened to his friend’s body after the battle for Fort Merceus, whether someone had retrieved it and given him a proper funeral in his hometown.  
But surely, he was going to be heralded as a hero who died defending his country from the rebellious kingdom.  
And he would also not be surprised if someone lived to tell the tale how Caspar’s closest friend had been the one to kill him.  
Linhardt could never show his face at home again.

He wasn’t sure if he should care.  
The past few days after this incident had been terrible; Linhardt had felt even more exhausted than usual, had spent his days in a clouded haze and the nights with sweaty, dreamless sleeps that helped nothing.  
Around the monastery, the mood was never very good right after a battle that had resulted in the loss of the lives of former students of Garreg Mach, but it tended to even out a little with each day. This sentiment had always resonated with Linhardt, he had never seen use in mourning for an extended period of time.  
It wasn’t going to bring them back, after all.

And it surely wasn’t going to bring back Caspar either.

Yet he kept returning to this place as if it was going to do anything, to get him closer to him or whatever else.  
He knew it was stupid, the dead were dead, they couldn’t hear or see those left behind. Again and again, the mage tried to ignore the graves below him and chose to gaze along the vast greenery and high mountains encompassing Garreg Mach. The warm summer breeze was calming, moreso than his studies that would usually do the trick, but on which he couldn’t concentrate at the moment.  
It was frankly frustrating.

But it also made him realize it was almost a miracle he was still alive  – had he not decided to leave his house behind and study under professor Byleth all those years ago, he probably would have fought on Caspar’s side and died on the same battlefield.

Whether this was a good or bad thing Linhardt couldn’t quite decide.  
However, the way things were right now almost made him think death would have been the better option. His inability to return to his usual form made him more embittered than he had probably ever been with himself, it was almost as if his body was rebelling against what his mind found would be the most logical course of action now.

No, maybe it wasn’t his body that kept him from returning to normality.  
Maybe it was his heart.

And if he was true to himself, when he was really sitting down and finding a few minutes to concentrate, it kind of made sense. It was just how people were.  
Linhardt had always thought that once the war was over, everything would return to normal, as much as it was possible anyway. Caspar had never been meant to inherit his father's position and title anyway, while Linhardt himself was determined enough to do everything he could to not have to bear the burden of his inheritance. He had never wanted it and had thought that together with Caspar, he might be able to find a solution. Maybe they could have run away together, travelling the long roads of Fódlan. No matter whether Adrestia stood proudly, whether it fell or Fergus simply regained independence, it would all be alright as long as this war came to an end. This had been his hope.

But now everything had changed.  
It was impossible to return to normality.

The thought that he would never see Caspar again, when this prospect of reunion had been what had motivated him the most, felt indescribably weird.  
He wasn’t sure at this point whether he was sad. Maybe he was angry, angry at himself for training his magic, angry at Caspar for never taking enough measures to cover his own weaknesses. No, he was mostly angry at himself. He should have known.  
Or maybe he wasn’t really angry, he couldn’t tell. Sadness, anger, these emotions all exhausted him way too much.  
He was simply empty.

At the very least, people left him alone for now, nobody was bothering him with trivialities. Byleth was surprisingly lenient when it came to instructions and training and the mage couldn’t remember if this had been the same thing for others who were associated with Adrestia and had witnessed similar horrors.  
As a commander and teacher, shouldn’t Byleth treat everyone the same?  
Whatever the case for his special treatment was, Linhardt couldn’t really say he didn’t appreciate it.

The green-haired sighed and plopped onto a nearby bench. He wanted to sleep so badly, was tired to the point where even yawning seemed too exhausting. But something kept him awake, so long until he passed out rather than fell asleep. This was nothing new for him, long days and nights of research could lead to the same result, but usually he would feel refreshed enough afterwards to go on for at least half a day without feeling too tired.  
These days, however, he woke up in the same state of mind he’d had before sleeping. It was a never ending cycle.

At least his mind spared him the images of Caspar’s blood on his clothes while he was asleep, they were bad enough already when awake.   
Sometimes he would look down on himself and think bloodstains had accumulated on his robes. A second later and they were gone.   
Whenever he inhaled deeply, the iron-like stench seemingly filled his nostrils.  
The warrior’s last words kept ringing in his ears whenever he tried to concentrate, crept into his head and spread within his brain like a thick web his mind could not escape. He couldn’t imagine what those words had been meant to be – no, he didn’t want to imagine. He knew, if he was certain about their content, it would make it all just worse.

Byleth seemed to be the only one who cared, who came to him a few times and asked if he was fine.   
Linhardt couldn’t answer anything but “yes”, because, frankly, what else should he say? This was war, there was no time for long faltering and while he found himself appreciating his commander’s concern, he also appreciated being left in peace and preferred to give the answer that achieved it the most easily, no matter how many times Byleth kept asking whether he was really sure he was alright.

He was almost like Caspar in this regard, trying again and again, not leaving him alone until he could be really sure everything was fine.

It was kind of endearing in a way.

Of course there was hardly anyone else who would approach him now, the vast majority of people around him had always been part of the Blue Lions or had been associated with Fargus in another way. Not many of the other houses had joined them, and Linhardt had never really been able to click with most of them.   
Even Dorothea, who had chosen the same path as himself, was just looking at him from afar, nodding as if she understood. He was sure she didn’t.  
Only the professor had always been there, listening, understanding.

And even if they thought they knew him, they didn’t know Caspar, could hardly relate to what he was feeling.   
He couldn’t explain it to them, didn’t want to explain.  
It didn’t matter all that much the mage, but within this jungle full of indifferent faces, having one that appeared to genuinely care felt rather nice. Byleth’s soft voice, his light pats on Linhard’s shoulder, the warmth of his hands was soothing. Listening to him during instructions, if he could keep his eyes and mind open, actually managed to ease his confusion and exhaustion a little.   
Maybe he should talk to him more. Maybe it would help.

Linhardt groaned and threw his head back, staring all the way into the orange sky. The longer he watched, the more it seemed to him like it was turning blood red, mocking him, reminding him of the event he finally wanted to forget.  
Forgetting was easy, usually, why didn’t it work this time?  
He stared and stared until his head began to spin and darkness crept towards the monastery.

He hated it, but it seemed Linhardt had to take matters into his own hands.  
He had to do something about this.

  
  



	3. Chapter 3

Byleth was truly surprised what the battle of Merceus had done to Linhardt.   
Of course he had seen his other students struggle with the trauma of seeing their old comrades  – classmates, even  – die in this gruesome war, and he fully understood their pain. Jeralt’s death had passed its five-year anniversary, and thinking back on it made Byleth’s blood freeze to this very day.  
But he had never expected that someone like Linhardt, who had never made a lot of efforts to connect to his comrades aside from formal conversations and topics related to his own interests, would be so affected by the death of an old classmate. 

Byleth didn’t know a lot about Caspar, had never had the chance to talk to him much back in the day. All he knew was that he and Linhardt had been good friends.  
He had heard from Gilbert that the mage had taken Caspar’s life himself, might not actually have planned to do so.  
In this case it made a little more sense that he had been so affected by this event, he had unwillingly bathed in the blood of his childhood companion. And yet, it was shocking to see how this man, who had been apparently unmoved by the death of some of this other old classmates in the previous battles, was reacting to it. 

He shut himself off even more than normal, physically and mentally, seemed to avoid the library in stark contrast to his usual behaviour. If he wasn’t staring into the landscape somewhere, he was sleeping.   
Well, maybe it wasn’t entirely that bad, but these were all the accounts that others had come to Byleth with. They had hesitated to approach him themselves, they all had told him, in fear of saying the wrong thing. Flayn, Ignatz, Mercedes  – they all noticed the subtle changes in Linhardt’s routine, no matter how hard he tried to hide them.  
Byleth, too, saw them easily and it made him wonder.

Was it his fault? He had noticed the mage’s aversion to blood and killing during the time he had studied under him, had tried to accommodate for his talents and limits just as much as he’d done for the others.  
The professor remembered how after the first few battles under him, Linhardt had discreetly slipped away from the group and into the nearby woods. His intend had been obvious, his coughs had echoed through the trees. Like the others, Linhardt had improved a bit over time, as realization had set in that it sometimes was necessary to kill to stay alive.  
But while he had never really managed to fully come to terms with it, seeing his good friend die was definitely a whole other experience. Maybe he should have never sent him onto this battlefield to begin with.

The outcome, the way Linhardt had been acting since then, was simply alarming.

He wanted to help the boy.  
Not only was he an essential part of this army, just like each and every one of them, seeing someone who usually appeared to be as calm and steadfast as Linhardt affected so vastly put up a permanent mirror to Byleth’s own fragility.   
No matter how strong you were, how strong you had to be for others to be able to rely on you, there was only so much a person could take.

And most importantly, Byleth wanted to help Linhardt as a person. Why it was him whose miserable face moved him to his core, the professor couldn’t really tell. But he had to do something.

“You seem unusually down today, professor.”

Byleth turned and found Dorothea smiling at him, graceful and shining as always. She was often found up here on the balcony opposite to Lady Rhea’s chambers, it wasn’t all that much of a surprise that they met in this place. What was surprising, however, was that someone had noticed his mood.  
The facade was indeed cracking. This wasn’t good.  
He had to do something.

There was no point in holding back, was there?

“I think I’m a little worried about Linhardt”, he confessed with a bit of a sigh, crossing his arms as Dorothea approached and joined his side in the orange hues of the sunset. Maybe it was good it was her, she too used to be a part of the Black Eagles in the past and, like Linhardt, was only here because she had wanted to study with him.

“You mean because of what happened to Caspar?”, she asked softly, “I heard it was Linhardt himself who killed him, that he spent the entire rest of that battle with Caspar’s blood all over his robes. You think he regrets it? That… frankly doesn’t really sound like him.”  
She sighed.  
“But then again… the two of them were always close, so I suppose even little Lin can’t just shake this one off. On the other hand… From what I have heard, both Linhardt and Caspar returned to their homes after you disappeared and Edie took the throne. I don’t think they’ve seen each other all that much during those five years, they might have grown apart.”

“Why would he be this moody, then?”

“I don’t know”, Dorothea sighed, “but losing a lifelong friend doesn’t go over well with anyone, trust me. Bernadetta, Petra, Caspar… they’re all still in my heart and it hurts every single day. And yet, we can do nothing but go on. But I suppose if you really want to know what’s going on in his head, you’ll have to talk to him, right? I mean, that’s how you do it usually, isn’t it? What’s holding you back?”

Byleth meant to join Dorothea in her sigh, but what came out instead was a deep groan. She was right, she definitely was, and it wasn’t like he hadn’t tried. However, every time he did so, Linhardt brushed him off, often with a tiny smile that was meant to ease him, but was so obviously faked and pained that Byleth didn’t even know why the young man bothered.   
He was smart, he surely knew Byleth was seeing right through him.

He really wished Linhardt was a little more honest about his situation. Seeing him press on, fight exhaustion to look normal in the eyes of others, staring into the void day in and out ever since they had come back from Merceus, it all kind of hurt.  
He wanted the mage to trust him, accept his help and sympathy. He wanted to see his small, regular smiles again.

“Just go and talk to him”, Dorothea whispered as she let the light evening breeze dance through her hair and dress. She beamed a smile at Byleth, winked as she continued.  
“You care for him a lot, don’t you? Maybe even more than for your other students? Believe me, I can tell.”  
She laughed a little and Byleth could do nothing but join in slight embarrassment. She was definitely exaggerating the situation, though. At least this was what the professor was telling himself.

But in any case, Dorothea was right, it was impossible to help Linhardt without talking to him in earnest. He had hesitated to probe any further as he had not wanted to put their relationship to a risk as he knew people as emotionally vulnerable as the green-haired mage seemed to be at this point could be very extreme in their reactions.  
Byleth didn’t want to risk saying anything that might hurt the other man even further.

At the same time, however, he didn’t want to see him suffer alone anymore.

“Yeah”, the former mercenary sighed after a moment, “you’re right, I’ll talk to him. I have to do  _ something _ .”

Byleth couldn’t quite decide whether to get over with it immediately or if he should rather look for an appropriate moment where Linhardt seemed to be comfortable enough. After a long moment of silence, he settled with the latter idea being the better one and left for the night.  
He could hear Dorothea giggle a little while he was leaving and looked back to find her shooting him another wink.

“Good luck, professor!”

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not sure if this chapter sounds as emotional as the first two, but that's how it is now. After all, it was never meant to be seven chapters of straight pain and hurt. Well, it still is, basically, but my intention is to have an actual plot, so things will get moving now. Speaking of chapters, this was originally planned to only have five, but while I was writing, I noticed that five weren't enough to have a more-or-less natural pace, so I raised the number. This also means that the structure I had originally planned doesn't really work out anymore, but... just wait for the other chapters and see if you'll notice ;D  
Anyway, thank you for all the lovely comments and kudos so far! <3


	4. Chapter 4

The following days, Byleth tried his best to make the promise to himself a reality. It was harder than he had expected, though, even taking the days before into account. Life went on and so did the war, and as the month progressed, the pile of preparations grew with each day closer to the next big battle.  
Between instructions, preparations, helping out wherever it was necessary, there simply was not enough time to grab Linhardt and sit down for a long talk. If even managed to find the mage, that was.  
Linhardt himself was harder to get hold of than before. While he showed up for instructions, the young man seemed to make a point of disappearing the moment the round was dismissed for the day, giving Byleth no chance to talk to him as others flocked him with questions and new information.

He declined all invitations to dinner, cooking, training, a chat over tea. When they ran into one another around the monastery, the two men stared at each other in silent discomfort for a moment until Linhardt would nod lightly and walk off.   
Sometimes it seemed he sighed or winced a little.  
Whenever Byleth tried to reach out, the green-haired looked at him, hesitated, but ultimately just left again.

He asked Dorothea to talk to him, to no result.

  
This went on for almost a week, frustrating Byleth more than he could have ever imagined. Then again, Linhardt also seemed to be much worse than he would have thought. No doubt it had to do with Caspar’s death at Fort Merceus, and this was exactly the problem.  
There was just nothing anyone could do to improve the fact.  
Byleth could turn back time for as much as he wanted, there were things that appeared to be prescribed by fate, unchangeable destinies, as he had painfully realized years ago. And it seemed to him that death specifically was something even his powers had no influence over. He knew, he had tried.   
In this regard, there was no way he could help Linhardt, as much as he wanted.  
But he couldn’t give up either.

And so Byleth found himself in his office one night, flooded with mountains of maps and sheets around him. The closer they came to the Adrestian capital, and thus towards Edelgard herself, the more dangerous their mission became and more elaborate preparation was in order.  
A knock on his door brought the professor out of his already dwindling concentration.  
Linhardt peeked his head through the opening, then slowly slid into the room, sinking into one of the chairs in front of Byleth’s desk.  
The professor looked up, but waited until Linhardt would speak, which just resulted in another long bout of awkward silence. 

He took the time to really look at the boy for a bit, something he hadn’t really been able to do for the past days. Linhardt always managed to look tired, but not terrible; other people would have huge bags or shadows around their eyes from too little or even too much sleep and yet, this was usually not really the case for the mage.   
Now, however, he looked simply miserable.  
His face was haggard, skin ashen pale, his eyes were missing… something. Byleth knew what it was. The curiosity that usually burned within him, no matter how tired he was, and that flickered in his eyes was nowhere to be found.

Byleth swallowed.  
“What… can I do for you?”

Linhardt looked around for a little, then settled on his professor once again. This was probably the longest they had actually looked at each other since they had returned from the fort.  
“I had hoped to continue my research in the library, but I can’t seem to concentrate on anything I try to read. It’s really annoying. I saw you’re still up and thought maybe you have something that could help with this. A tea, maybe, or…”  
The last few words became inaudible as they were swallowed by a hearty yawn that Byleth knew was genuine. He had heard so many of these yawns over time.

“Sorry, I don’t have anything of the sort here”, he replied, “I’m kind of… struggling myself right now. It’s really late, just go to bed.”  
Linhardt shook his head as the light movements let some strands of his long hair slide away from their position behind his ear and fell over his shoulders. He didn’t seem to mind and slowly, they began to veil his face.  
“No”, he said, “it’s time I return to my studies. This has been going on for way too long. We all need to live with the consequences of our actions, don’t we? No, don’t answer that. I know we do. But why is it so...”  
He sighed.

“You knew Caspar very well, after all.”

This time, Linhardt nodded.

“We were friends since childhood. He never judged me for changing houses, always kept on as if nothing had changed at all. I liked that.   
When you disappeared, I returned home and didn’t know what to do. Those were some relaxing days… But as you might imagine, certain people, my family, weren’t very keen on that. Caspar was wandering around the lands from what he told me, and occasionally showed by. My family was pretty happy and decided he was supposed to motivate me into ‘doing something productive’. I think we spent more time together than during our childhood. Well, maybe not that much, but you know. I saw him grow. I watched him train.  
It was a nice time, and it was also more… close. “

Byleth couldn’t quite see the young man’s eyes, but he could surely see his hands on his lap, how they kneaded each other, tug at his clothes. Maybe he thought they were invisible from behind the heavy desk.

The professor rose and joined Linhardt on the other side of the table, drew the second seat closer to the young man.   
So they had seen each other during that time. They had still been close.  
“He was… I was… We…”  
Linhardt sighed deeply and threw his head back. He stayed this way for a moment, stared at the dark ceiling.  
“I didn’t know this many muscles can still feel so soft.”

Without much of a second thought, Byleth reached out for the boy again, this time not stopping, going through just like that day on the battlefield. He laid a hand on Linhardt’s, thinking the one being soft was him. Long, slender fingers absentmindedly wrapped themselves around his own.   
They stayed like this for a little, just the two of them and the silence of the night.   
When Linhardt finally looked at his commander, their eyes met again, the other man had to swallow. The bursts of life still hadn’t returned to his blue eyes, but they were glistening regardless. Those weren’t sparkles of curiosity, however.   
Byleth was convinced they were tears.

“I’m sorry”, the man whispered, “it’s my fault. I sent you to that side of the fortress.”  
Once again Linhardt shook his head, more green strands falling across his face. He raised a hand towards them, but Byleth was faster, softly brushing the boy’s hair back until he got a better view of his face again.  
The mage stiffened for a second.

When he relaxed again, his hand fell into Byleth’s, clung to it once more, nails digging into the skin of his palm.   
“You could have impossibly known he was there. It was me who did it and me alone. I know, since you’re our commander, you’re responsible for everything we do and all that, but honestly, that’s stupid. I never believed in that and won’t start now.”  
He was probably right, in a way. Of course he was, Linhardt’s observations were usually way too sharp to be wrong. Byleth couldn’t have known, probably. 

“I was the one taking up his challenge. I knew he couldn’t beat me, because he never would. I was the one who did it, I injured him, I had his blood on me, I – ”

“It’s okay”, Byleth whispered before it got out of hand.   
He didn’t want Linhardt to continue like this, to drown in this sea of pain and self-contempt. Someone had to pull him out, bring him to the shore, revive him, and Byleth was determined to be the one. He could never replace Caspar nor bring him back, most definitely not, but at the very least, the boy needed someone in these dark days.  
Maybe that was the difference, why he seemed to suffer more than others. If Linhardt wouldn’t let his comrades help him out, Byleth would be the one to do it.  
Well, that, and he wanted to.  
He didn’t want to see Linhardt in pain anymore.

“Tell me what I can do for you.”

The mage looked at the pile of hands in his lap, squeezed his teachers’ lightly. Slowly, his gaze returned to Byleth and a small, tired smile formed on his face. It seemed much less pained and more genuine than the ex-mercenary had seen him smile for what felt like an eternity.   
It was quite pretty, actually.  
“Thank you, but I think you’re already doing quite a lot. Talking to you is very… relaxing. Maybe we can talk again soon.”  
“I’ll be there whenever you feel like it.”

Linhardt rose, smile not quite vanishing. Slowly, it seemed like life returned to him, the natural elegance of nobility flaring up again ever so slightly. The mage hesitated to leave for a moment, their eyes met.  
After another few seconds of silence, Linhardt returned to the seats and reached down to place a short kiss on Byleth’s lips.

It was over as quickly as it had happened.  
_ Had _ it even really happened?

“I knew it. You feel just as soft as him, professor.”

The door closed behind Linhardt before Byleth could even really comprehend what had just happened. He stared at the ornamented wood for who knew how long as realization was slowly sinking in.  
Soft… Yes, indeed, Linhardt, too, had felt very soft and it had been very nice. Just like his hands, his hair, his voice, his eyes.

He had never noticed it before.

No, that wasn’t true. This war, which raged on for way too long, had forced him to ignore it to the point where it felt more normal to do so. But now that he really looked back on it, it wasn’t anything new.  
The professor let his head sink into his hands, pressed the palms against his eyeballs. Maybe he was just so tired that he was confusing his own surprise upon Linhard’s actions for something else.  
No, none of this was anything new.

Byleth didn’t know how deep into the night he stayed this way until he finally decided to leave. He crept along the floor and into the library and, as expected, found a mess of green hair framed by several books in the light of a candle as the only visitor at this time of the night. The tiny knot at the back of his head had come loose, hung limply to one side.  
Byleth watched as the young man’s shoulders rose and fell in regular intervals. He noticed the cool air, took off his coat and carefully placed it on Linhardt’s back before he blew out the candle and left.

They were going to talk again some time, after all.

  
  
  



	5. Chapter 5

They would indeed talk again, but it was scarce.   
Linhardt came to him after instructions sometimes, asked an easy question or two. Byleth found a note of his in the advice box, asking for guidance on what to do against sleeplessness. “Talk to someone who can ease your mind before going to bed” was his suggestion, but Linhardt wouldn’t take it up for the time being.   
They exchanged greetings again, ate a few times as the month progressed. Their talks stayed rare, though, too rare for Byleth’s taste.

However, when Byleth let Linhardt sit out on the following battle, he earned himself uncharacteristically big protest from the mage.  
“You don’t need to give me special treatment because of what happened”, he scolded his commander after showing up before him in the weeks before the battle for Enbarr.   
Byleth was of a different opinion, however. After their last talk, Linhardt had made a bigger effort to return to his routine, seemed to be improving a little with each day. He was still not ready to talk about it with others, that much was clear, was still unusually gloomy overall, but he had begun to return to his usual habit of alternating between researching and napping. He wasn’t satisfied with his performance yet, as the disgruntled looks on his face while he hung over his books would reveal. The times where he would sit in the library, bury himself in books and write entire essays had not quite returned.

“I’m not”, Byleth replied, trying to stay as calm as possible. He had tried to evaluate what had happened during that last talk, whether or not the kiss was supposed to mean anything. In the end, the professor had decided that it probably didn’t.  
After all, Linhardt had been in a terrible state of mind, hurt and confused, mourning. He might have seen something in Byleth that was not actually there, something he _ wanted _ to see.  
There was just no way he had really meant it.

The worst was that this most logical prospect disappointed Byleth.

“I simply need you here most. You know that evaluating information, research of the battlefield, advising battle plans is all a vital part of our preparation, right? We’re almost in Enbarr, we can’t afford to make any mistakes now. And I know you and your incredible intellect are best suited for this.”

Linhardt leaned back, sunk into his chair in silence.   
“So you want to make me your strategist? I’m honored, really, but…”  
He hesitated, eyes fixated on the hands in his lap.   
“The last time I thought I had a plan it all went horribly wrong. I thought I could save him, I…”

“It’s okay”, Byleth whispered.

“It’s not”, the mage retorted, almost hissed at him, “It’s… not.”   
He swallowed.   
“What if someone else dies because of what I came up with… I know you agree that losing anyone is awful. I don’t know if I can do it. Staying behind without having to fight sounds really great, but I need to go. His death is senseless if I don’t do it now that we’re so close to bringing this to an end.”

“It would be even more senseless if you die”, the professor replied. He laid his hand on the table, open palm inviting Linhardt.  
“I heard from Gilbert. Caspar didn’t look like he had meant to fight you, I’m sure he didn’t want to injure you. It’s possible he only initiated this confrontation because he had no other choice under the eyes of his superiors. At least that’s what it seems like.”  
“I know… It was clear from the beginning, but I just couldn’t…”

Byleth sighed. It seemed Linhardt hadn’t improved as much as he had thought, and in this state it was absolutely impossible to deploy him. He had to find another argument.  
“If you die… who is going to help me find out more about my crest, about myself?”

The green-haired finally looked up, stared at Byleth’s hand on the desk between them. Slowly, he raised one of his own and laid it into that of his commander. Slender fingers brushed his palm lightly before they came to a rest and the two men finally looked at each other in earnest.   
Byleth’s thumb ran along the back of Linhardt’s hand, noticing the smoothness of the pale skin, befitting for a noble like him.  
“Please”, he repeated, “I need you here.”

Linhardt squeezed the ex-mercenary’s hand, he closed his eyes with a sigh and when his gaze returned to meet Byleth’s, he managed to flash a tiny smile.  
“Alright, I suppose you’re not wrong. Your crest is too special… I can’t die before I know exactly what it is all about.”

After Linhardt had left with another tiny nod and smile, one that finally looked a bit less faked and pained, Byleth let out a sigh of relief. He didn’t really know whether or not he would ever deploy Linhardt again, whether the mage would improve now, but at the very least, he hoped that he had finally understood how important he was.   
Yes, Linhardt was important, way too important. More than he had ever expected to think of the mage, who was still very much too occupied with Caspar to notice.   
Maybe it was better this way.

  


Linhardt turned out to be a bit of a better strategist than Byleth had thought. He knew that the young man had troubles keeping his attention to a topic that didn’t interest him personally, some of the talks he needed to make to assess information and evaluate each army member’s strengths and weaknesses were reportedly awkward. Byleth had to fill him in on Dedue, as this meeting specifically had turned into a session of silence.

Byleth didn’t mind that, it meant they were able to talk some more in peace. Having a serious topic like this meant they would not cycle back to the events of Fort Merceus, even though it also meant the commander sometimes had to fight Linhardt’s tendency to fall asleep mid-conversation.  
“Your voice is just so nice to listen to…”, the mage mentioned once or twice.   
Luckily, Byleth managed to come up with a trick to keep him awake – whenever he noticed the scholar’s mind was about to drift away, he changed the topic to something more related to his personal studies.  
He was relieved to see that it worked, how the sparks of enthusiasm and scientific curiosity slowly returned to Linhardt’s eyes. The moments in which he uncomfortably kneaded his hands, hesitated before making an addition to their plans became a little less with each time they met, the mountains of papers the young man wrote on both crests and their strategies grew.

He still let him sleep from time to time, enjoyed the young man’s solemn face as he drifted away into dreams.   
But he would also witness his pained moments, when it appeared memories of the recent events came to haunt him, when he would lightly tremble, tears glistening in the corners of his eyes. He hesitated to wake him up, though, feared his small gestures might give the wrong picture.  
It just seemed inappropriate at this time.

The following battle for Enbarr went perfectly. Still, Linhardt had insisted of coming along, argued that as a sort of emergency strategist for last-minute plans, he would have to be there, watch, observe, learn.  
Just as much, Byleth wanted him to stay back, he was still recovering. The others were split between an understanding camp that felt Linhardt was not in the right shape yet, showed sympathy which the mage unsuccessfully tried to brush off for now, and one that supported his decision as one that had the potential to raise the morale of their troops even more, as they would see everyone pushing themselves to the limit as they were right before the doors to Enbarr.

Linhardt kept his promise of staying in the background, only appeared from time to time to help his comrades with a well-timed healing spell from across the battlefield.  
When they had finally taken down the last remaining obstacle between them and Edelgard, Hubert himself, Linhardt approached the group that had gathered around the corpse, asking whether someone was injured  
and needed help.  
Byleth knew immediately this was a bad idea.

Dimitri turned and presented a deep wound across his arm he had received when going hand to hand with the dark bishop. It looked gruesome, as if Hubert’s magic had burst Dimitri’s skin open from the inside, but the king-to-be showed no visible pain.  
Linhardt cautiously moved closer, as Mercedes was busy helping out in a different corner. He winced a little at the sight of the wound, but a second later he froze right on the spot, seemed unable to get through with what he had wanted to do.   
It couldn’t be the injury, Byleth thought. As the entire group stared at the mage, almost just as frozen at the image of his unexplainably extreme reaction, Byleth followed Linhardt’s line of sight.

It finished right on Hubert, who had found his bloody demise at the wrong end of Dimitri’s lance.

After a few moments of silence, the scholar swallowed, took another step forward and treated Dimitri’s wound with shaking hands. Nobody dared to say a word.  
After he was done, Linhardt turned abruptly and left, seemingly not even reacting to Dimitri’s words of gratitude. Byleth hesitated to reach out for him just as much as the others did, which he regretted immediately. But he had no choice right now, the duties of a commander demanded his attention. He bit his lip in hope Linhardt was as even just half as alright as he would surely claim to be if someone asked.  
The group looked after him for a moment as he disappeared behind a corner and wouldn’t show up again while they were packing up and clearing out the battlefield.

This took more time than Byleth would have liked, and when Linhardt had still not returned to the camp as the sun was about to set, the ex-mercenary had no other choice than to go back to the city and look for him.

As he searched the streets, catching glimpses of the battle that had raged here just hours ago, he noticed his own steps becoming faster with each moment. It wasn’t so he wouldn’t tread through too many spots of dried blood. He didn’t mind them much. But what he did mind was being unable to find the mage and with every minute of not seeing him, his nervousness grew.

Byleth stopped.  
He had to calm down, hated how worked up he suddenly got about this. His mind spat images at him of robbers that took the opportunity of a chaotic battlefield to pillage the city, threatening the mage as he came along.  
No, Linhardt could very well take care of himself. He wasn’t _ that _ fragile.  
Or was he?

“Professor.”

Under the remains of the setting sun reflecting in the glass shards of broken streetlights, Linhardt appeared, seemingly out of nowhere, soundlessly like almost out of thin air.   
Byleth flew around upon his voice, immediately felt the relief roll through him as he caught sight of the other man. His blue eyes seemed to peek through the shadows while the rest of his face stayed covered. His voice, however, was firm and when he stepped closer to his teacher, Linhardt kept his gaze on his surprised commander and dared to show a tiny smile, just for a second.

“I took notes on the results of the battle and how it affected both the city and our troops. Or, well….”  
The green-haired yawned and as he rose an arm to cover his mouth, Byleth could catch a glimpse of the sheets he had apparently used. They were not many and appeared to not have all that much written on it.  
But at least he had tried. Byleth was proud of the result.

Before the instructor could answer or react at all, Linhardt passed him, shot another very brief smile. It seemed less confident as the one before and Byleth thought he had seen a small tremble of the young man’s hands clasping his papers just moments before, but he couldn’t be sure. It was too dark, the instance of it too short.  
Finally, he turned, reached an arm towards Linhardt, managing to grab one of his hands. The mage stopped, looked at him in confusion. He squeezed his commander’s hand and Byleth thought he felt another short tremble.

“It’s late”, Linhardt yawned, “I really need some sleep. I’ll give you my evaluation tomorrow…”

He tried to wrestle his hand free of Byleth’s, who wouldn’t let go. Not now. Not for the moment.  
There was this nagging thought in the back of his mind that Linhardt wasn’t as alright as he tried to appear, that he was still maintaining the facade he had started to put up about a month ago.   
As his relief ebbed away and was slowly replaced by a knot in his throat, Byleth returned the squeeze without a word.  
The mage looked at the entangled hands between the two of them for a moment.

“Please”, he whispered before he managed to free his hand and once again fled into the darkness.

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the chapter I probably (no, surely) struggled with most while writing, but I needed it as a linking element between what came before and what comes next. I apologize if it's not of a similar quality to the rest but I've been working on this one for so long and at some point decided there's no point in continuing to rewrite things in fear it would just become worse. The last two chapters are (hopefully) better ^^;


	6. Chapter 6

When he arrived at the camp, Linhardt was more exhausted than he had at first thought. He had tried saving face in front of his professor for as much as possible, but once again Byleth’s reactions also had shown him that he was beginning to fail.  
Of course he was. The other man knew him much too well to be fooled at this point.

This was terrible. He had worked so hard to regain at least a little bit of normality, but it seemed like it had been in vain.   
He felt so sick.

The mage made it to his tent, threw the set of papers he had carried to the side and sunk into his sheets, clothes be damned.  
At least they weren’t full of blood this time.  
Not that it meant much, as the stench of blood and death hung around the city since the battle. To Linhardt, his mind kept whispering that all of these smells were caused by Hubert’s death alone, no matter how illogical it was.  
Hubert’s death itself wasn’t the problem, however, no matter how hard he tried, Linhardt felt almost nothing for this man. But he could have gone without seeing his mangled corpse.

In the first moment, when he had only seen the shadow of a human figure surrounded by a pool of blood, his mind had played a trick on him and shown him Caspar.  
Only for a tiny second.

But that tiny second had been enough to unnerve him so much that he had been unable to stand his cheering comrades’ company for the rest of the day. He had aimlessly wandered through the streets of Enbarr, had carefully tried to avoid the most obvious places of battle.

Despite his best efforts, however, his body had still forced him to stop a few times and find a quiet corner he could retreat to as he hurled the contents of his stomach onto the ground. At some point, there hadn’t even been anything left to throw up and all he could do was helplessly gag.  
For a while, it had seemed to him as if Caspar’s voice had whispered through the streets, carried by the winds that brought the stench of blood with them, as if both were hunting him down no matter where he went.

They had ebbed away after a while, luckily, and Linhardt had managed to take a few notes on the city’s situation after the battle, how it had affected the townspeople and what could be done to improve their situation and let Faerghus’ army appear in a better light.  
He didn’t care much about any of this, but it provided a welcomed distraction from the noises and smells of the dying. It had seemed to work, and under the light of the setting sun the mage had managed to make his way back to the camp somewhat alright.

When he had met Byleth along the way, however, something had returned.   
It hadn’t been the nausea.  
He had looked at the professor, felt his warm hand and how it once again managed to calm him down, how he had been less on the edge the longer he looked at him.   
The dead were dead, he kept telling himself, there was no need to cling to these feelings of loss and shame. But was it really alright to allow himself to be soothed by the sight and feel of his commander? Caspar couldn’t see it.   
But Linhardt did, saw himself enjoying this man’s company more than he had ever expected. When he napped next to him during their meetings, he woke up more refreshed, despite the occasional nightmare. It was easier for him to fall asleep in the first place and in these moments, it almost felt like in the times before everything had gone downhill. Seeing a familiar, sometimes worried face when waking up made him almost forget the nightmares he might have had before.  
The only difference was that he was sleeping next to Byleth now instead of Caspar.

He didn’t know what was worse  – the nausea, the thought that it was wrong for him to still be here, or knowing that his professor was the one who slowly eased his pains.  
No matter which it was, it didn’t seem right.  
He didn’t want these feelings anymore, none of them.

As he kept staring at his pillow, just waiting to finally fall asleep, and the noises of the camp around him had begun to ebb away, a soft, cool draft tickled him. When it disappeared, it was replaced with footsteps and the hearty fragrance of a warm soup from Duscur.

“Here you are”, Byleth whispered softly, probably wasn’t sure whether Linhardt was asleep or not. The mage heard his professor slowly approach the bed, stop, let silence take over for a moment.  
“I know you’re awake.”

Linhardt sighed and pushed himself up, but was not ready to face the other man. It just didn’t feel right. He shouldn’t want to be with him. It was too early.  
From the corner of an eye, he saw Byleth set down the dinner bowl on a stool Linhardt was using as a makeshift nightstand, usually for books and notes.   
“When was the last time you ate something today? Come on, it’ll do you good.”

The mage considered it for a moment, but in the end, he decided it would probably be a waste anyway. At some point, he’d remember the bloody mess that had been Hubert’s corpse, the fresh and dried red pools the city had been drowned in, Caspar’s voice that had seemed to wait for him around every corner.  
No, it would be such a huge waste, there were surely others that were still hungry.

After another moment of silence it was Byleth who sighed as he sat down on Linhardt’s bed. The mage could feel the warmth of his body, he was close enough that his breath made some of his loose green hairs dance.  
He shouldn’t be this close.  
But Byleth, seemingly unaware of the other man’s goosebumps, put his forehead on Linhardt’s shoulder, slid an arm around his waist. They stayed like this for a moment, let silence unfold and the warmth of Byleth’s body soothed him almost more than he wanted as Linhardt pressed his back against his commander a little, sinking into the rhythm of his breathing, drowning in his fragrance.  
It was almost like his times with Caspar, and yet so different.

Linhardt had always thought the professor missing a heartbeat was a myth, a schoolyard rumor. But it was true, he could feel it. Or rather, he felt the lack of it.  
Being with Caspar, their embraces and touches, had always been outright hot rather than just warm, as if he had had enough stamina and life energy for both of them together. He had drowned in that energy of his, had drifted into sleep to the excited yet steady beat in Caspar’s chest.  
In Byleth’s case, however, it was the serenity produced by the lack of a beat that managed to sooth Linhardt’s heavy mind and soul. And even beyond that, the way the professor always kept his cool, talked to him in this soft voice, made Linhardt feel like they could challenge the heavens and come out victorious, no matter what happened.

The mage let one tired hand glide above his teacher’s, their fingers tangled together.

He felt save and at home with both of them, could sleep best when they were around.   
But where Caspar had managed to pull him into a continued cycle of excitement and the quiet peace that had followed, Byleth brought safety and certainty, which could be energizing as well.   
He thought he had known everything about Caspar there was to know, his predictability had let them fall into a comfortable routine. Byleth was a walking mystery, meanwhile, the sole fact that he was alive seemed like a miracle.   
Both of these sides brought him satisfaction, happiness. They were both exactly what he wanted.

He loved them both.

Linhardt squeezed the professor’s hand, sighed lightly. He was so tired, his mind could barely stay awake.  
But he was sure these thoughts, these feelings, were not just produced by a tired, confused and traumatised head. He knew they would be hardly different if none of this had ever happened.  
Caspar was gone, but he could still keep him deep in his heart. What would his friend say to all of this if he was still alive? Wouldn’t he encourage Linhardt to do what made him happy?  
Surely he would, Linhardt knew him too well to believe otherwise.  
If he believed in some sort of ethereal life after death, he’d ask Caspar to watch over him, to always stay with him as he continued into the future.

Another sigh.  
All of this was way too much for his tired mind right now, but he knew he had to make a decision soon. 

“Linhardt”, Byleth whispered into his emerald hair, tickling the mage lightly as he spoke, “tell me what I can do for you. Please...”  
He pulled the scholar closer to himself.

Linhardt sunk into his bed until he could press his head against his commander’s beatless chest. He drew the blanket closer over himself, took in the other man’s unique smell now that the soup had begun to cool down. It was so relaxing, he wanted it to never cease.  
Yes, he had to decide, but for now, he just wanted to sleep.

“Just stay with me for a while, professor”, he whispered back.

He felt Byleth nod, entangled fingers dancing around with each other. His other arm finally embraced Linhardt as well.   
The scholar let the warmth enwrap him, flow into him, as he drifted away into dreams and almost didn’t hear the professor’s answer. He wasn’t sure if this was really what he had said, but he found himself wishing so.

“For as long as you like. Even if that’s forever…”

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After the previous chapter, which I'm personally not so much a fan of, this one is much better in my opinion again. At the end of the day, maybe the whole thing is still going too fast even though I already inserted two more chapters to my original structure, but I'm also not sure if putting in even more chapters would have helped instead of letting it drag on for too long. So I guess in this sense, the length is fine after all, and as I said, I do find this chapter better than the one before. Last one's coming up soon aaaah


	7. Chapter 7

At last, the final battle had come and the army that had united under Byleth and Dimitri was faced with a massive creature nobody of them could really believe had once been Edelgard.  
She didn’t seem like a person anymore, just a raging, deformed beast hell-bent on destroying Dimitri and all he stood for.   
For the first time in a long while Dorothea and Linhardt exchanged confused and anxious whispers upon her sight, agreed that it was probably better that Caspar, Bernadetta and all the others did not have to witness her having gone so far anymore.  
Even Hubert would not have wanted this.

For once, Linhardt was glad Caspar was not with him. Her blind, monstrous wrath betrayed everything his friend had been fighting for. No matter how much it hurt, it was almost a relief he could not see this.  
Linhardt was going to go through this for the both of them.

As per Byleth’s continued wish, Linhardt once again stayed behind the frontlines and had returned to preferring it this way as the army suddenly saw themselves confronted with enemies nobody had ever seen before, who were capable of wielding more powerful magic than even Hubert, covered vast spaces and commanded monsters on top of it. Whoever they were, they did everything in their power to keep the troops of Faerghus from reaching Edelgard.   
Linhardt, Mercedes and Dorothea had no great problems dealing with the attacks of these mysterious people and provided distraction as Dimitri, Felix and the others made their charge towards the gigantic Edelgard.

It almost surprised Byleth that the Adrestrian Empress turned out to be alive after her monstrous form disappeared, considering how much of a beating she had taken.  
That didn’t last for long, however, and the professor deeply regretted the fact that her final, defiant assault on Dimitri had sealed her fate after the future king had tried to reach out to her one last time.   
They could have ended this less tragically.

In the end, all that was left were blood and tears.  
Dorothea was devastated and even others that had never had anything to do with Edelgard, such as Mercedes or Cyril, prayed for her soul to finally find peace.

Returning to Garreg Mach kicked off the festivities over the reclaimed independence of Faerghus, which would surely continue once Dimitri made it back to the capital of Ferdhiad. Despite everyone’s exhaustion from the battle, the euphoria of victory kept them up all night long after their return, drowning in the high of their combined success.  
After a while, Byleth found himself needing time to himself and some fresh air regardless. If people were not gathering around Dimitri, he was the one in the center of attention as the great commander and professor without whom this victory would have never been possible.  
It just became too much, he wanted a clean head for a few minutes.

It was finally over. Peace was able to return to Fódlan, the people could live without fear, rebuild their lives.   
It was the same for Byleth, suddenly it might be possible for him to live his life for himself instead of a church or a kingdom. What would he want to do with this life? Live it alone? No, possibly not.  
But as he had stared at his parents’ combined grave before this final fight and remembered his mother’s ring, he had thought about one person he could imagine sharing his life with. But was it even right to think of him?

A little giggle echoed through the darkness.  
“I knew I could find you here, professor.”

Byleth flew around to discover Linhardt was almost right in his face. He smiled as confidently as he hadn’t seen the other man smile for a long time.  
It almost felt like an eternity.

The professor sighed a little, returned the smile. He hadn’t really wanted to see anyone right now, but Linhardt was an exception. In fact, he was very glad the mage had managed to predict him this well. His relaxing company was most welcome.  
For a few minutes, they just stood under the Goddess Tower together in silence, listened to the winds of Fódlan dancing around them. Linhardt’s fingers brushed against Byleth’s lightly from time to time, and when the professor looked at him, his gaze seemed to trail off into the darkness of the night.  
Maybe, Byleth thought, he was just misinterpreting things.

“Linhardt?”  
The mage turned and finally gave his professor attention again and Byleth noticed how it seemed his sapphire eyes were regaining their sparks of life.  
“Yes, professor?”

“I… How do you feel, now that it’s all over?”

The mage sighed a little, tucked some strands of hair back behind his ear that the wind had set loose. He flashed a bittersweet smile.  
“It’s over, yes, it’s finally over. I never have to fight again. It still feels so unreal, I can hardly imagine we won’t set out for yet another battle tomorrow. But it’s great. I’m free now, we’re all free to do whatever we want, unbound from the chains of war. I know, I know, it’s not that simple, but… close.”

Byleth nodded, there was still a lot left to do, especially for people like Linhardt, whose entire family tradition revolved around their position in the Adrestian Empire, which was now headless and might soon fall into administrative chaos. As the only heir to his house and title, Linhardt might not actually be all that free after all.  
And it was possible it could be similar for Byleth himself.

“What is it you want to do?”, he asked the other man.

Linhardt hesitated a moment to answer, cleared his throat. Just when Byleth had thought the other man had suddenly become unusually nervous, he returned to his normal self as if nothing had happened at all, looking at Byleth deeply.

“I want to keep napping and studying crests, of course  – especially yours. No, actually, not just your crest...”

He reached into his jacket and pulled out something Byleth at first couldn’t make out in the darkness until it began sparkling under the moonlight in the same emerald green as the mage’s hair.  
A ring.

Byleth couldn’t believe his eyes, something had to be wrong about this. Suddenly, the possibility that the way they had interacted over the past weeks had been interpreted by Linhardt in a certain way had seemingly become a reality.  
He wasn’t sure if it was right, at least not just like that.  
There was something he needed Linhardt to understand.

“I’m not Caspar.”

Linhardt began rolling the ring around in his palm, just for a moment. Quickly, however, he returned to holding it out to Byleth, smiling at him.  
“I know. I absolutely do, believe me. You are you, and I’m glad about it. You’re the most unique and fascinating person I’ve ever met. I want to know more about you, to solve the mysteries that surround you. I want to study you forever, be with you. You’re simply… intoxicating.”  
He stopped for a moment, sighed as his gaze fell for a bit, landed on the hand between them.

“Don’t get me wrong. Caspar is still with me, I can’t just forget him and what happened. But it’s alright, in a way, I just cannot let this take over my life anymore. This is not what we fought for. I fought because you promised you’d make sure I never have to fight again and you were right. I’m free now, free to do what I want and to be with who I want. And the one I want to be with is you, profe –   
– _ Byleth _ .”

Hearing Linhardt use his name for the first time made all the nervousness and doubts fall off him in one go. He was being serious, there was no possibility for a wrong interpretation anymore.  
And there was only one thing left to do now.

When Byleth reached into one of the inner pockets of his coat, Linhardt was quite sure he knew what was going to happen. And yet, being presented with the sight of Byleth’s own ring managed to make his heart skip a beat.  
He had always been aware of and thankful for Byleth’s continued deep support, it had been impossible to ignore how he made sure to spend more time with Linhardt in comparison to his other ex-students, especially after Caspar’s death, how consoling him had slowly turned into something more.  
The mage didn’t want him to return these feelings just out of pity. But if he had already come here with a ring ready, this was surely not the case.

And there was this faint memory of Byleth’s words from just a few days ago. Seemed like they had been real after all and no half-dream while drifting into sleep.

All of this was real.

If someone had told him this only a few months ago, Linhardt would have probably laughed them off. In his mind at the time, the war would have ended at some point and he and Caspar would naturally end up in each other’s company again. Maybe he would have accompanied Caspar on his travels through Fódlan and beyond, napping together, studying, chronicling their bad-guy-beating exploits.  
After all, he had always known Byleth would end the war somehow.  
And he had at least been right about that part.

He was so glad.

“I want to be with you as well, Linhardt”, his former professor whispered, “I love you.”

For his reply, Linhardt picked up Byleth’s ring. It sparkled beautifully in the moonlight, though it was quite obviously a women’s ring.  
But that was alright, the mage was sure he could make it fit around one of his fingers, they weren’t huge anyway. Long, yes, he was aware of that, but not very thick. The design did not matter either, as long as this ring came from Byleth. It was beautiful. 

As he slid it onto one finger, Byleth picked up his ring and did the same.  
They laid their ringed hands onto one another’s, Linhardt noticing that while Byleth’s was still fairly slender, it was a little bigger than his own overall. And so warm.  
How could anyone without a heartbeat feel so wonderfully warm?  
One day, he might solve the mystery that was Byleth’s life, but if he was true to himself, Linhardt found that this could still wait for a long, long time. He just wanted to stay with him, talk to him, sleep next to him, be held by him, stay like this  – always.

It was what Caspar would have wanted.   
He would want him to move on from these days of sorrow.  
He’d want him to be happy.

Their fingers intertwined and Linhardt moved closer to his commander, the latter noticing the knot that had begun to form in his throat over the course of the last few minutes. Extreme emotions were still too few and far between for him to have experienced all of them, the knot in combination with a raising but not entirely unpleasant warmth in his stomach made his head incredibly light.  
It only got worse as Linhardt looked at him, confident smile on his face.  
And what a smile it was.  
There also seemed to be a bit of a blush on the man’s cheeks.

“I… knew you would take the ring, I’m glad I wasn’t wrong.”

Byleth inhaled sharply at the sight of Linhardt’s growing smile, until he managed to return it, a blush on his cheeks as well. He squeezed the mage’s soft hand, slipped his other around Linhard’s hip, pulled him just a tiny bit closer.   
He could feel the green-haired’s rapid heartbeat.

They closed the gap between their lips.

It seemed to last an eternity and yet, to Byleth it hadn’t felt anywhere near long enough.  
Unlike that first surprise of a kiss in his office a few weeks ago, this one was careful, longing and sweet. The softness of Linhardt’s mouth was something he had noticed before, had made him more aware of the man’s lips afterwards.  
It was incredible.

When they parted again, the two exchanged an equally long yet way too short gaze while Linhardt slowly let his hand, which had been resting on Byleth’s shoulder for the duration of the kiss, wander towards the professor’s face, gently caressing his cheek. Framed by prominent lashes, the scholar’s eyes shone just as much as the now much more noticable blush below them. 

“So… it’s official now, isn’t it?”

A nod.

Their intertwined fingers danced around until they were apart again and Byleth used his to pull the mage into a tight embrace for just a moment. Linhardt answered by sliding his arms under his commander’s long coat, enjoying his warmth.   
Just for a moment, they stayed like this beneath the moonlight.

“Perfect”, Linhardt whispered, “incredibly perfect. It’s almost like… paradise.”

They decided to retreat to Byleth’s chambers for the rest of the night, silently slipping away from the tower, the festivities, the world. 

It was clear to both of them that the future was still uncertain, and as Byleth was pulled into his responsibilities as the new archbishop almost immediately in the following days and weeks, the freedom they had both desired was only really true for one of them.   
Their private time, however, more than made up for it. They went fishing together, built marriage plans, saw Fódlan change. Whenever Linhardt would lay in his arms napping or going on long tangents about what new discoveries he had made about his fiancé’s crest, all of Byleth’s stress and worries were gone. Time did not matter.   
It was indeed like paradise.

And together they had made it so.   
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Phew, that's it! Like with every chapter, I wrote this one quite a while ago already but waited with uploading in case I found something else I'd want to change/add.  
To be very honest, while this was how I wanted the fic to end right from the start, I also struggled a little to give the story such a comparatively sappy ending. I mean, it's a good payoff for all of the pain I made Linhardt go through, but I at the same time I feared that it might come off as Byleth taking advantage of a heartbroken, grieving person. It's partly why I upped the chapter count from 5 to 7 during planning the fic out to give the relationship some more time to develop and I sincerely hope it worked. I surely didn't want it to look like they only got together on the back of Caspar's death and the emotions involved with that.  
In any case, I thank you all from the bottom of my heart for all the comments, bookmarks, kudos, everything. Thank you for staying with this fic and I hope you enjoyed it. In fact, I might write a follow-up (probably a oneshot) at some point after I'm done with a few other things I want to write. Once again, thanks to each and all of you! <3

**Author's Note:**

> This is based on my (first) Blue Lions playthrough, where I recruited Linhardt, but couldn't get Caspar in time. Originally I wanted to do a Black Eagles run first before writing this, but it just wouldn't leave my mind. A lot of things in this first chapter play out similarly to how they happened for me in chapter 20, however the biggest difference is that I'm using f!Byleth in my actual game.  
As a short summary what happened: I wanted to see Linhardt's dialogue should he challenge Caspar and also needed to soften him up so Gilbert could go in for the kill, which was already sad enough. Then Linhardt goes and crits his friend to death. I was utterly stunned, and, as I mentioned, I couldn't forget it at all, so I just started.


End file.
